madness

It won’t always feel this way. Nothing will, have you realized?

May feels violent and restorative. If relief is the best feeling, waiting may be the worst. I’m feeling very secretive. Like if I tell you the truth, what I’m waiting for will be taken from me.

I keep trying to free myself from that mindset, but I’m stuck in the part of the shallow where everything crashes. I can see just ahead that everyone else is swimming peacefully. I’m so close but I keep getting water in my nose and sand in my eyes.

And since I needed a sign, some sort of reminder that I am not nothing, I was gifted my favorite dress from my favorite boutique.

Who cares- No listen to me. When we first moved here I remember looking at the price tag and not trying it on. I got the DM in April, from the new Miami location but I didn’t have time to pass by. Tell me how I end up in the Cabo store with the owner picking out the dress I’ve been staring at for three years. On the way home I looked at Marcello and said that felt like a forehead kiss from God and he said no I know. Next thing I know we’re planning this photoshoot with my son, for Mother’s Day.

photographer: Pol Rodriguez <3

And that was just the beginning. Marcello absolutely crushed it. I’m talking a hand-drawn cards, Spanish for Saturday, English on Sunday. Spa treatments. Coffee in bed. A beach club with the best smash burger in Baja.

At barre, I was gifted a rose and the Uruguayan woman next to me shared the rest of her mate with me. ALL this and

1. I still managed to squeeze in being a huge brat and had a meltdown over warm Prosecco and overall control (moving on)

2. Nothing could have prepared me for the preschool

White tablecloths, hand made bracelets, mini personalized wooden cutting boards with charcuterie, and what I think is a virgin sangria. We’re told to convey to our children, using only our gaze, what they mean to us while a coldplay song plays a little too loud. Across the room, our eyes meet — Mich is about to have her second baby, and Kate is three months postpartum. They’re crying so much that it hardens and softens me. They have children.

I can’t surrender until Mateo melts into my arms because he’s so heavy but such a baby and I realized how hard this is on me and how fast. I leave feeling very grateful and very devastated that I’m not in infancy anymore and I haven’t been in a while and the heaviness of that reality attacks me in the shower after the event.

Kids know where they end and their mothers begin. A baby does not. On one end the separation is seamless and on the other it’s a rip that never fully heals.

Mateo is saying words properly even the ones he had his own special perfect names for. Like rocket ceci: chocolate chechis. Now it’s just milk. Now when I ask him about rocket ceci he doesn’t even know what I’m talking about.

Life is happening all around and everyone’s so casual about it but it’s huge it’s the biggest thing. Everything happening. My grandmother’s 90th birthday and how I couldn’t be there, but I chose the poem. Every time I say bye for years I have braced myself for the possibility of the final goodbye.

She reads me her poems and I sob in the car, every time. Last month I couldn’t with my son at my feet. So I didn’t even let it fully arrive. I kept it casual so that maybe it would convince me that it is, but it’s not. None of this is.

Three years is fast.

But May is long.

I’ve been, in addition to losing my mind waiting, reading shitty fiction and watching shitty tv. A friend of mine has reached radical self acceptance and I wonder what it feels like. I went to three barre HIIT classes last week and hurt my knees. I spoke about my health negatively and woke up sick.

I rented dear john to feel 13 again and it worked. I watch and re watch greys anatomy but never finish. I never finished one tree hill or desperate housewives. I rarely finish shows especially long ones and especially if I love them. I rarely finish anything.

I am glad I didn’t publish my thoughts on the girl’s trip to space that I wrote on the plane. Restraint is key.

We were up late watching american paul. I love it because their father Greg is insane and because these people are not scared to make mistakes and be honest and be crazy. I love watching siblings fight and make up and be very successful. I love seeing the man and woman that created these siblings and piecing together why they are who they are and from whom. Logan wanted to have a boy, but it’s a girl. Everyone’s nervous because it’s scary to protect a girl.

When it comes to protection how much of it is our responsibility and how much of it should be left to the powers that be? God, spirit, universe. Choose your plan, but “have a plan”. More important than a plan, have discernment.

If my early twenties were defined by the reckless yes, then my late twenties have been a continuous lesson in the power of no. I’ve always known when to leave the party because I’ve always had a curfew. I haven’t always known when to say no. Now I do. Now it’s better.

When we launched The Miami Native, a production company reached out about translating the essence of the magazine, of Miami (of being a girl from Miami), into a podcast. The call was full of energy but chemistry is not the same as alignment. At the time, I was doing the sex and the city podcast with my sister, the magazine, a copywriting job at an agency, and recovering from the surgery that was most likely the result of trying to juggle so much. This was all one year ago — I hadn’t even heard of Substack.

Anyway I get a DM from this guy who I met through that production company asking how I feel about mediums and psychics. I’ve only ever been to Santeros (Pupi in Miami and Juana la Cubana in Havana) which are neither, but also kind of both. My gut whispers at what cost, but I’m intrigued and listen to the soft pitch on being a guest on this new podcast hosted by a medium. When I click on the instagram he sends me I can see a clip of a friend of mine who had already been on the show. Perfect. I send it to her and ask what the experience was like and if she thinks I should do it. She answered immediately and said wait what the post is unavailable. Immediately no. Early 20s Alexa would have said yes.

The more that I say no and the more that I rest the more I receive and one day, mark my words, I’ll be in the same room, at the same time, as Theresa Caputo and she’ll know what to say and I’ll let you know. It’s all just a matter of time. In a few days my life will never be the same.

Everything is changing. Soon. Soon!!!!!!!!! Especially if you were born between April 7, 1996 – June 9, 1998 or October 25, 1998 – February 28, 1999. You have less than a week buckle up, I’m strapped.